I drove into a small opening with my truck. From the truck I got out walking in my own tire tracks grabbed the broom from my truck and hopped off the trail a bit.

I swept out a large 6x10 area right down to the ground.

I set the broom aside and grabbed my bucket, again trying not to make any "new" tracks in the snow.

Then for a trap bed i took my mallet and pounded a shallow trap bed in the ground. One on each side of the swept area (traps about 9 feet apart) I lined the bed with just a wee bit of anthill duff and placed the trap.

Then I used my broom to brush some snow from the surrouding area to cover the trap. (the really cold temps and the powdery snow work really well for me) .

After the traps were blended I dug a couple of larger dirt holes (3" by about a foot deep) My thought is the larger hole wont fill with snow as quickly.

Then I bait each hole in one I used a good amount of carmens canine call (stinky nasty skunky) and the other some bobcat medly from dobbins. My thought here is in the cold weather the lure has to be strong to carry very far, if there is too much lure for the animal to comfortably work the set then there is the other hole with the bobcat bait.

As it turns out he was in the skunky smelling trap. I think the setup did nothing but get better with the fresh fox smelling catch circle. Especially because the bold little SOB stood there barking at me and pissing like some rhino ready to kick my butt .

I hope to have some better pics of something soon.

(Moderator Note: Mike's photos not available, here is photo of winter Red Fox taken on my line in 2011)

this is what works for me, I have caught plenty of animals in the winter even though some say its harder, I agree you have to do a few extra things but its worth it to see that pretty fox waiting for you in the snowy scene.

Here is another diagram of a set with the same principle. We kicked an 8 foot circle. Put the two traps in one in the top right corner and one in the bottom left corner and made the one in the top right a dirt hole with a backer, no scent.

The bottom is a double dirt hole with Hawbakers food lure in one side, the other side had Miranda's red fox gland lure. On top of the backer we placed a little Dobbin's Klondike which is a skunk essence lure.

I will add this too. A #3 trap may seem a bit large for the foxes, but in the cold weather with there always being a chace of getting several inches of snow on the ground, I use larger traps. The area has lots of coyotes so I have only 4 coiled #3 traps in the ground.